Question: When the store mix the paint.

I've never worked in a paint store, but I'll sure try to explain my opinion.

If a few drops of color will be lost due to normal workday stuff happening, then the amounts of each color to be added should be considerably more than a few drops, otherwise the color would vary from day to day and depending on which person does the mixing.

This kind of manufacturing "slop" needs to be swamped out somehow, to get consistency.

It's kind of like you put in a vanity and the gap with the wall varies 1/2" or so over the depth of the vanity. If you can put in a filler strip 2 or 3" wide or more, this variation will never be noticed.

If it's only one gallon of paint, the amount of colorant is less than for five gallons, but the proportion between the colorants stay the same.
It's the colorant proportions that are at risk when the operator spills one of the colorants.
If he spills all the colorants equally, then I guess the resulting color would not be as intense as desired; the finished mixture color would tend toward the base color (white?).

Question: When the store mix the paint.

Quote:

Originally Posted by slickshift

Possibly not too off-topic, as it may be pertinent, but are the tint amounts computer controlled on that bad boy?

No. That looks like a 5G shaker, two stacked gallon shakers and a manual tint machine. Personally we never bothered to sink the $12000 into the auto tinter we were offered when we took Pratt and Lambert as out main line. A store the next town over got the auto tinter and they've had more problems with it mistinting than I've ever had manual tinting.

And yes it is true that a few drops can make all the difference in a small quantity on lighter colors. Even if it were a quart and a dark color I wouldn't be too worried thought. It can take more tint than you might think to change some colors enough for the human eye to notice.

My old Duron tint machine, which is like the one in the photo leaks tint all the time and we've never had any color issues caused by it. The teflon cylinders in it just don't seal as well as they use to. My new P&L machine has tip caps that close after every tint is dispersed so it never leaks. Never dries in the tips either like the old machine does. I've had too many days of using Krud Kutter and paper clips to clean out the tips on the old one.

Question: When the store mix the paint.

Since we're a C2 retailer, we were pretty-much required to have a top-line tinter for it.
They give you a choice...$spendy...$$spendier,...and...$$$oooffda! !!

The one we got is a $20,000 COROB (with computer, etc.)...JUST FOR C2.
* 16 colorant cannisters...each holds 6 Qts.
* C2 uses a 16-colorant system.
* This thing uses two transmissions, one one each side, running 16 gear-driven pumps.

We HAD 2 other auto-tinters (revolving platter style) by Fluid Management, but one bit the dust when an electrician overheated the circuit-board accidentally!
Soooo...now we're down to the old-fashioned "manual" tinter, 1 Fluid-Man. auto-tinter, and the big COROB.

It's kinda cool...sometimes we'd have all 3 auto-tinters shooting colorant at the same time...and just stand there and watch!!
(3 computers controlling 3 tinters...)

Question: When the store mix the paint.

Isn't this (dropping a drop here and there) why they dry you a little spot of test paint?

I have certainly had a can of paint that was tinted by machine, but when the color dried it was not even in the right ballpark (ok, maybe the right ballpark...it was still green...) but it was definitely off from the color chip. They offered to mark the mis-tinted can down 50%.

The nice part was, I didn't really give a crap about whether it was 'Mossy Oregon Green' or 'Fern Dream'. For this particular project (painting my compost bin) green was green.

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